United States v. Herbert

10-2566-cr
United States v. Herbert
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
SUMMARY ORDER
RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A
SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY
FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN
CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE
EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION
“SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY
PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY COUNSEL.
1 At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the
2 Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse, 500 Pearl Street, in the City of New York, on
3 the 22nd day of June two thousand eleven.
4
5 PRESENT: DEBRA ANN LIVINGSTON,
6 DENNY CHIN,
7 Circuit Judges,
8 JED S. RAKOFF,
9 District Judge.*
10
11
12 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
13 Appellee,
14
15 -v.- No. 10-2566-cr
16
17 JEFFREY HERBERT,
18 Defendant-Appellant.
19
20
21 TIMOTHY AUSTIN, Assistant Federal Public Defender (Molly
22 Corbett, on the brief), for Alexander Bunin, Federal Public Defender,
23 Northern District of New York, Albany, NY, for Defendant-Appel-
24 lant.
25
26 RAJIT S. DOSANJH, Assistant United States Attorney (Thomas
*
The Honorable Jed S. Rakoff, of the United States District Court for the Southern
District of New York, sitting by designation.
1 Spina, Assistant United States Attorney, on the brief), for Richard S.
2 Hartunian, United States Attorney, Northern District of New York,
3 Syracuse, NY, for Appellee.
4
5
6 UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND
7 DECREED that the sentence of the district court is VACATED and the matter is REMANDED
8 for resentencing in accordance with this Order.
9 Defendant-Appellant Jeffrey Herbert appeals from a judgment of the United States District
10 Court for the Northern District of New York (Kahn, J.), filed June 21, 2010, convicting him,
11 pursuant to a plea agreement, of failure to update his sex offender registration, in violation of 18
12 U.S.C. § 2250(a), and larceny from a credit union, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2113(b), sentencing
13 him to 15 months’ incarceration and a life term of supervised release, and ordering him to pay
14 restitution for the larceny. Herbert appeals from the sentence of supervised release imposed by the
15 district court below on both procedural and substantive grounds. We assume the parties’ familiarity
16 with the underlying facts, procedural history of the case, and issues on appeal.
17 In reviewing a sentence imposed by the district court, this Court “appl[ies] a ‘deferential
18 abuse-of-discretion standard.’ ” United States v. Tutty, 612 F.3d 128, 130 (2d Cir. 2010) (quoting
19 United States v. Cavera, 550 F.3d 180, 189 (2d Cir. 2008) (en banc)). Reviewing first for procedural
20 error, we must “ensure that the district court committed no significant procedural error, such as
21 failing to calculate (or improperly calculating) the Guidelines range, treating the Guidelines as
22 mandatory, failing to consider the § 3553(a) factors, selecting a sentence based on clearly erroneous
23 facts, or failing to adequately explain the chosen sentence.” Id. at 130-31 (quoting Gall v. United
24 States, 552 U.S. 38, 51 (2007)). We then assess the substantive reasonableness of the sentence,
2
1 “set[ting] aside a district court’s substantive determination only in exceptional cases where the trial
2 court’s decision ‘cannot be located within the range of permissible decisions.’ ” Cavera, 550 F.3d
3 at 190 (quoting United States v. Rigas, 490 F.3d 208, 238 (2d Cir. 2007)). In the absence of a
4 contemporaneous objection either to a Pre-Sentence Report (“PSR”) or at the time of sentencing,
5 we will review a claim of procedural error in sentencing for “plain error.” See United States v. Diaz,
6 176 F.3d 52, 117-18 (2d Cir. 1999).
7 In his principal claim of procedural error, Herbert objects to the continued reference in his
8 PSR to U.S.S.G. § 5D1.2(b)(2), a provision of the Sentencing Guidelines that states that for “a sex
9 offense,” the length of a term of supervised release “shall be not less than the minimum term of
10 years specified for the offense under [other subsections of § 5D1.2] and may be up to life.” Id. §
11 5D1.2(b). This subsection of the Guidelines includes as well a policy statement stating that “[i]f the
12 instant offense of conviction is a sex offense, . . . the statutory maximum term of supervised release
13 is recommended.” Id. § 5D1.2(b)(2) (policy statement). Because Herbert’s failure to update his sex
14 offender registration did not meet the Guidelines definition of a “sex offense,” the government
15 concedes that the continued reference in his PSR to § 5D1.2(b)(2) was an error and that the
16 Guidelines range for the supervised release component of Herbert’s sentence was in fact governed
17 by U.S.S.G. § 5D1.2(c), which provides that “[t]he term of supervised release imposed shall be not
18 less than any statutorily required term of supervised release.”
19 Under the circumstances present in this case, we conclude that this error rendered the
20 supervised release component of Herbert’s sentence procedurally unreasonable and that this error
21 is sufficiently “clear or obvious . . . at the time of appellate review,” United States v. Villafuerte,
3
1 502 F.3d 204, 209 (2d Cir. 2007), to warrant correction even on plain error review. While the error
2 in the PSR appears to have been inadvertent, the district court judge in this proceeding never set out
3 on the record its calculation of the applicable Guidelines range for supervised release for Herbert
4 and, while he adopted the PSR at sentencing, that report relied on the erroneous Guidelines
5 provision in setting out its conclusions as to the applicable range. Given the importance of a district
6 court’s correct calculation of the applicable Guidelines range, see Gall, 552 U.S. at 49, we believe
7 this error warrants remanding to the district court for resentencing on this component of Herbert’s
8 sentence. As the defendant points out, it is impossible to determine on this record whether the
9 district court, in sentencing Herbert to a life term of supervised release, did so under the impression
10 that his offense was one for which a Guidelines policy statement recommended the statutory
11 maximum. Moreover, while the parties do not appear to disagree regarding the applicable
12 Guidelines range for supervised release for Herbert and the issue was not raised below, there seems
13 to be at least some disagreement among our sister circuits as to the appropriate Guidelines range in
14 circumstances such as those here. Compare United States v. Gibbs, 578 F.3d 694, 695 (7th Cir.
15 2009) (concluding that the Guidelines range for supervised release under § 5D1.2(c) is limited to
16 the mandatory minimum), with United States v. Deans, 590 F.3d 907, 911 (8th Cir. 2010) (holding
17 that the Guidelines range in this situation extends from the mandatory minimum to a life term), and
18 United States v. Poe, 556 F.3d 1113, 1129 (10th Cir. 2009) (concluding that calculation of a
19 Guidelines range extending to life in this context was not plain error). We do not offer any opinion
20 regarding this issue here, but note that remanding for resentencing under the correct Guidelines
21 provision will permit the district court to address this issue in the first instance, to the extent that the
4
1 further proceedings below warrant doing so.
2 In light of our conclusion that the district court committed procedural error, we need not
3 address Herbert’s arguments that the sentence he received was substantively unreasonable. See
4 Cavera, 550 F.3d at 190. The district judge of course retains his authority at resentencing “to select
5 any appropriate sentence, consistent with 18 U.S.C. § 3553(a), whether or not pursuant to the
6 Guidelines.” United States v. Folkes, 622 F.3d 152, 158 (2d Cir. 2010) (per curiam) (emphasis
7 added) (internal quotation marks omitted).
8 For the foregoing reasons, the sentence imposed by the district court, insofar as it provides
9 for a life term of supervised release, is hereby VACATED and the matter is REMANDED for
10 resentencing in accordance with this Order.
11
12 FOR THE COURT:
13 Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk
14
15
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